


Rituals

by SincerelyChaos



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M, Or Perhaps Not?, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Rough Sex, Sexuality, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-17
Updated: 2016-04-17
Packaged: 2018-06-02 18:31:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 536
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6577744
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SincerelyChaos/pseuds/SincerelyChaos
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>And you can't fuck any of that away, but you can do things, primal, human things; things that will drown out anything that is not radiating heat the way two bodies do - performing ancient rituals; rituals that your body knew before you yourself knew words, before you knew fear.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rituals

**Author's Note:**

> Previously posted as part of the haphazard ficlet collection, but now posted on its own due to coming disintegration of said collection.

 

 

You're pulling too hard, and you're distantly aware of this, but your hand just won't let go of the tangled curls that’s floating and curling from in-between your fingers, tickling the skin of your knuckles.

And your own body, your own skin - it’s being _bruised-bit-broken_ just as hard. And against your left pectoral, too hot breath is painting the skin with ragged exhales while long fingers keeps rocking, keeps invading your body relentlessly somewhere in-between the mess of almost-kisses/almost-bruises and friction.

Broken blood vessels mends and finger-shaped bruises fades. You wish it wasn't so, because there are other marks that will not fade and other injuries that will not mend, and you would rather wear the marks of a lover having fucked you too intensely than any of the marks you wear now. But traces of brutal need doesn't last as long as the evidence of mass-produced weapons in the hands of desperate, traumatised men.

The world is at war - against itself, against everything that moves, against common sense and against anything that isn't producing more money to burn.

This - the two of you - produces nothing. Nothing more than sweat and heat and temporary respite from cars closing up too close and bodies turning cold. Still, there are hands on your body and hips meeting yours and it's enough - more than enough - for you to tune out anything that isn't teeth biting down too hard and skin turning sore.

Somewhere far away, somewhere outside the space between your bodies someone is screaming, someone else is watching and letting it happen. It won't stop happening.

(It never stops.)

Inside your mind there are images that will never ever fade, of bodies killed by more hateful things than disease or accidents, of eyes so empty they can no longer be filled. But if you open your eyes right now you can stare into eyes so vivid they will force you to blink, look away, gather yourself before once again meeting the gaze that holds a very different chaos than the one inside your nightmares.

A chaos that brings warmth in the midst of the clear, icy chill caused by blown-out windows, the glass-splinters sprinkled over your floor like snow, reinforcing the memories of other wars, other deaths.

And you can't fuck any of that away, but you can do things, primal, human things; things that will drown out anything that is not radiating heat the way two bodies do - performing ancient rituals; rituals that your body knew before you yourself knew words, before you knew fear.

And you like to think it's just like that; that this is older than any of your scars, older than your fear. Because then you can return to this, to bodies tangling up, to lips bruising and to the muscle memory of something you've always known, and nothing that you fear will be there, it'll be just as abstract as the future always is. And there will only be this; his body rocking into yours and your hands around his wrists and his skin almost diffusing into yours, and there you'll have respite from broken glass and broken scapulas and everything that can shatter and spill.

There will be only this.


End file.
